Musings from southern New Mexico

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I hear a lot of complaining about the fact that the sherbet-colored abomination’s campaign was largely driven by an enemy state. What people need to understand is that the enemy states purchasing offices for puppets is the only logical conclusion of the Roberts Court’s Citizens United decision.

Many Revolution-period Americans were born in Europe. There is a single reason the U.S. Constitution expressly restricts the office of President to “natural born citizens.” That was to prevent European powers from installing foreign princes to the U.S. Presidency. The laws put in place to limit the power to purchase political offices have been winnowed away since World War II. Once the Roberts Court declared the de facto sale of political offices “Constitutional,” all that was needed was a “natural born citizen” who intensely hated this country, was at least a C-list celebrity, and could be made popular in white supremacist circles.

The only obstacle to this plan is a Republican who places the country ahead of his party.

But Ronald Reagan made loyalty to the nation, the Constitution, and one’s personal ethics secondary with his so-called 11th Commandment, “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”

In order to follow this, one must condone child molestation, bribery (though, again, the Roberts Court declared this legal for the foreseeable future), and even treason.

Putin’s installation of that tangerine nightmare was perfectly legal according to the Roberts Court. And any Republican is effectively muzzled by the “party above country” policy instituted by Reagan.

Very little of any new Clinton “revelation” is truly new. Anyone with a long enough memory can recall a predecessor to each supposed scandal. It is odd, then, that the infotainment industry has skipped over major news in favor of minor recycled “scandals” already shown to be non-issues. Serious ethics/corruption questions have been raised regarding Trump’s campaign donations and the serendipitous dropping of fraud lawsuits by states whose attorneys general had received said campaign donations. Perhaps, as is claimed, nothing untoward happened. What seems a clear case of graft to us laypeople “does not,” by the reckoning of some great legal minds, “give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.”

Bribery legalization notwithstanding, the unwashed masses (i.e. we the people) are easily distracted by shiny new scandals. So why have all Trump’s numerous scandals been quietly swept under the rug even as each investigation of Clinton proves just another baseless accusation and/or wild goose chase? Part of the answer may be that the media as a group have a vested interest in keeping the election as close as possible. Despite Trump’s profound unsuitability for any high level position (let alone the highest position on Earth), members of the press seem willing to abrogate their duties as journalists in favor of their duties as lackeys to their industry.

I never thought the vocation entrusted with protecting democracy would actively subvert democracy to protect its business model.

My psychic powers sometimes allow me to enter the minds of others. The night of the closing of the RNC, I awoke drenched in sweat. It may have been a bit of food poisoning. It may have been mixing NyQuil with bum wine. It may even have been shooting up with an infusion of bloodworm venom and demon ichor (and daffodil petals, for some reason). Whatever the case, I was transported into the troubled soul of the current RNC PR BS Guy, Reince Priebus.

The main idea exploited by Fox News since its inception was to capitalize on the “liberal bias” of whose existence right wing radio personalities had been insisting since Reagan did away with the “Fairness Doctrine.” Research has since revealed the existence of a strong liberal bias in journalism. What the research did not look into, however, was the most important aspect. Legitimate journalism was strongly biased against the claims of movement conservatives in the same way that science texts are strongly biased against the claims of witches.

The general pattern for the decision-making process is roughly this:

Traditionally, liberals’ claims are often biased in their favor.

Traditionally, conservatives’ claims are often biased in their favor.

The public, in the interest of fairness, gives equal weight to both sides.

The resulting ideas are often fairly accurate assessments.

Roger Ailes’ strategy seems to be this:

Allow the liberals to make somewhat biased claims. (i.e. 2+2=3)

Answer with profoundly biased claims. (i.e. 2+2=39)

Wait for the rubes to to accept the middle point between the two claims as fact.

In 2008, I voted for Hillary Clinton in the primary. That was not because I preferred her to any particular other candidate. The reason was, in the parlance of Mr. Charles Pierce at Esquire, “ratfking.” Since she first appeared on the national stage, Clinton had been the subject of rodent-ravaging to such an extent that it would grow into a cottage industry. Thousands of trees were sacrificed at the hands of the right wing press in this service. Yet she had weathered the storm.

At the time, I imagined that a newcomer such as Barack Obama would be a big risk. A handful of insignificant statements or activities from the past could be rapidly converted into a closet full of skeletons by an increasingly mercenary media corps.

When the admittedly under qualified Senator won the nomination, many embittered Hillary supporters became a part of the informal “Party Unity My Ass” or PUMA movement. I was not prepared for what would happen next. Many of these heretofore ardent Hillary supporters came to loathe the Democratic Party. That’s fair enough. I thought at the time that an unprepared Barack Obama had been lifted out of obscurity to present a fresh new face by a party leadership more interested in marketing than in policy. But that did not change the fact that his claimed positions were very close to many of the claimed positions of Hillary Clinton. Nevertheless, the importance of delivering a high decibel “F– You” to the Democratic Party became paramount. Rather than aligning with an ideologically similar person or group, many disgruntled voters chose to actively oppose their own interests.

Now, with a closer than expected primary between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, the so-called “Bernie or Bust” movement recalls the PUMAs. In further irony, those whose support of Clinton was strong enough to bring outrage at Obama’s usurpation now hate her with as much passion or more. They have gone all in in support of even the most clearly insane crackpot ideas proffered by an increasingly unhinged Republican candidate pool. And now we can expect their numbers to be swollen by supporters of a self-proclaimed socialist who would rather support an overt purveyor of fascist ideology. Because Clinton lacks the ideological purity of Sanders, some (supposed) Sanders supporters loudly proclaim that they will vote for Trump before voting for Clinton.

That’ll show ’em.

In a way, however, this may show the brilliance of a seemingly unplanned stratagem. The right has striven to allow overt racism and misogyny in Congress to become so overwhelming that government will effectively cease to function under anyone but a white Christian male.